Vampire Diaries, Season 6, Episode 22: I’m Thinking of You All The While

After a brief aside of Damon and Elena being cute in a completely-unfitting-to-the-scene manner, we return to the scene of destruction where the entire Gemini coven can do little more than scream and die when faced with Kai and Kai alone – and Damon tries to wake up the unconscious Elena. He tries to give her vampire blood but I don’t think that works with the cure. Among the wreckage Alaric sobs holding Jo who has completely ruined that dress with her blood.

Damon zooms Elena to the hospital and Kai breaks Caroline and Stefan’s necks to get them out of the way (the room is literally scattered with shards of broken wood – it would actually be easier to stake them than anything else).

The Gemini finally decide to do something – prison world time. Seriously, get a new trick. Like stabbing him in the head! To be fair, in this one instance it makes sense not to stab Kai since, as coven leader, killing him would kill all the Geminis (which I am totally ok with). Kai makes an attempt to explain himself – Jo’s kids would be competition for his position (expected to merge and become the next leader). And his previous attempt at redemption is hand waved – since his family decides he’s irredeemable, he’s decided he might as well be

Kai then stabs himself in the neck. Well that’s one way to get rid of a villain on the last episode of the season when you have no grand arc for them.

We have some angsty dream scenes with Elena and Alaric which I think will be a theme and a recovered Bonnie calls Damon in the hospital for some recapping. Elena’s unconscious (without any physical ailment according to the doctors), Jo is dead and Damon needs Bonnie to do something to fix it all.

Liv, along with the rest of the Geminis, is dying from dead-Kainess and Tyler has a big shard of glass in his stomach. Tyler declares how much he loves Liv and she insists that he kill her – she’s dying anyway, it’s a full moon he will heal his wounds if he turns into a werewolf. They kiss, there’s more “I love yous” back and forth – and she holds his hand over her mouth and nose. He starts shifting as he desperately calls Matt to warn all vampires to run – there’s a venomous wolf on the run.

Enzo has grabbed Caroline and Stefan for a road trip so he can add to the recaps (Kai is dead as well now – and all the Geminis are “going down with him”) and Enzo needs their help. He takes them to Lily who is looking for her witchpire friends who Kai promised he would bring back with him. Stefan points out that Kai is not the most trustworthy of fellows. Honestly Stefan, you might want to stop building up this whole mother connection, this isn’t a genepool to be proud of. But he keeps trying, keeps trying to get her to side with her son over the people she calls family. She doesn’t even hesitate.

Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up The Moon (Please Don't Tell My Parents #2) by Richard Roberts

Penny, Claire and Ray are back from their supervillained shenanigans over the holidays and they are now back at school.

And they are bored. So very bored.

So when a supervillain offers them the chance to explore space and visit the moons of Jupiter, of course they jump at the chance!

Robots, alien goo, warring factions, oppressive automatons, and so much more – Penny and her friends are deeply involved in all of it.

Penny and her minions in the Infernal Machine are back – and I have been looking forward to this one.

This book takes the story to a completely different world – literally. The supervillains go into space using Penny’s magnificent inventions to explore new world and discover a really wide cast of characters and factions around Jupiter’s Moons

The world here is really impressive in its complexities. We have so many different factions with a range of different plots and motivations and agendas which don’t always work together. Each society/faction is very different and there’s a lot of storyline elements from each one – as well as characters who either cross the line between the different factions or draw upon lines from different faction – and even have motivations simply above and beyond their factions. I like that in particular because it’s always tempting just to make characters little avatars of the factions they represent.

Absolutely nothing about this is simple. Even the hallucinating space goat. No, really.

There’s also some really interesting interaction between Penny and another super-powered being she finds there, Remmy. I like how Penny has been established as powerful and special – but she still has peers and equals. I like the complexity of their relationship with reasonable misunderstandings, competition, friendship, jealousy and just a lot of very real emotion as well as some very pointed lessons about underestimating people and assuming their own super capabilities

If I have a complaint it’s because this book is TOO complex. Too many factions, too many people, too many separate agendas – and all of it completely introduced at once while the gang try to learn it all and wallow in the middle of it while pushing a storyline. And I wasn’t even sure what the storyline was. What were the Infernal Machine doing? What was their actual agenda there? I honestly didn’t know and I did feel kind of lost and confused more than once as I tried to remember who all these people where and, ultimately, why the Infernal Machine should care. In some ways they felt like a clumsy insert causing a lot of problems as they plunged into a situation they knew little about

Penny Dreadful, Season 2, Episode 2: Verbis Diablo

After the prayer showdown of last week, Vanessa spends some time cowering before going to tell 

Malcom, all shaken and disturbed. She desperately seeks comfort from him and all he can offer is to be there with her.

They have a father/daughter moment. The next day Malcolm takes Vanessa to a project of his wife’s (he calls it his atonement and a something that brings him peace) – a large colony of people in London’s tunnels suffering from cholera. Malcolm remarks about the suffering while the city is so rich (including him – perhaps less money on expeditions, Malcolm?) and they sight see their way past all the destitute and sick to work on the soup kitchen which Malcolm funds

Frankenstein and Caliban have succeeded in resurrecting Dead!Brona. Having spent most of last episode groping her, they now try to talk to her. Frankenstein urges Caliban to be patient as she has to learn about the world first (is Brona’s mind completely gone?). Caliban is all about poetry. Frankenstein is all about practicality and wants to teach her first. Frankenstein refers back to Proteus – and how he began to remember before Caliban killed him. They have a bit of a “you’re evil!” “so are you!” moment. Victor goes back to groping before teaching her his name.

She picks up language quickly, though Victor told her she had an accident and is his cousin – as a part of that and imitating him she has completely lost her Irish accent. He also changes her name to Lily – which makes her inexplicably sad.

He continues to make up a history of the two of them, creating a fake childhood between them in rather eerie and creepy detail as he dyes her hair. He also tells her that Caliban was her fiancé – but he says he doesn’t know if she loved him or not. Brona/Lily says again who vulnerable and lost she is and begs Victor for protection “don’t let me hurt.”

Back to Frankenstein and Victor introduces “Lily” to “John Claire”.

Among the sick in the cholera camp, Vanessa finds Caliban and brings him soup. He’s very self-effacing and deferential in the face of her obvious class (contrast this sharply with his attitude towards Victor). She expresses her nervousness among the nuns with her difficult Catholic past and they have an excellent exchange “do you offer religion?” “do you require it?” “No” “then I shall not offer it.” She’s also not that sure she’s on speaking terms with the Almighty. He talks philosophy and poetry quite beautifully about morality and accountability to each other without the fear of god. He talks more about the world being enough for him in his classic, beautiful, eloquent fashion

As Vanessa leaves, she tells him he has beautiful eyes.

Supernatural, Season 10, Episode 22: The Prisoner

The whole “previously on Supernatural” could just be replaced with my glaring face.

Time for some catch up with the Steyn’s including a bullied student with a rather awesome come back and the intervention of a family member being all ominous then hunting down and murdering the teenaged bully.

To the Winchesters building Charlie’s funeral pyre – flashbacks, angst and manpain for everyone. Things are definitely not good between the brothers – when Sam begins to say sorry as Charlie’s body burns, Dean tells him to shut up – and that he got Charlie killed. Sam goes back to how he did it all for Dean and how they’re brothers and of course he will fight for him (it’s a nice speech but it has been so often repeated on this show it may as well be recorded). Dean is not in a forgiving mood – he even says that Sam should be the one on the pyre. Now the disposable character has been disposed of, Dean wants the whole book examination shut down. And Dean’s going to go on a vengeance fuelled vampire, possibly Mark Enabled, but he’s past caring

Back to the Stynes and bullied teen-Steyn Cyrus feeling all oppressed by his family’s control, and 1 armed Eldon Styne having to explain that yes he not only didn’t get the book but he kind of left his arm behind as well. Ooops, careless! But the Winchesters have a whole cave full of shiny stuff so he wants to move on past the discarded limbs and focus on raiding their bunker for the haul. But he’ll need a new arm – which means getting Cyrus in to slice and dice his bully for spare parts. Cyrus doesn’t want to (his daddy puts this down to him being “soft” because he’s the baby). Daddy demands he takes part and slicing and dicing follows

I think, in terms of organ harvesting, them being conscious to wiggle and scream et al is not the most practical of means.

Eldon gets a new heart and Cyrus is all sad – and Eldon insists Cyrus come with him.

Dean heads to the Stynes and on the way he gets hassled and harassed by local cops who arrest him on ridiculous charges before finding a whole shed load of very real charges in his car (as well as dropping a hint they were tipped off about him). In the police station Dean decides that the best way out of this is violence.

A couple of beaten cops later he learns that Monroe Styne (Eldon’s daddy) set the police on him because he’s just that influential. Dean isn’t impressed

He makes his way to the Styne compound and people start dying. He’s ambushed by Monroe and a whole army of Stynes with guns and they put a plastic bag over his head (which seems to be a Styne trade mark – I suppose it doesn’t damage the goods)

Dog Days (Dog Days #1) by John Levitt

Mason makes a living filling in with different bands as a jazz guitarist in San Fransisco.  With his dog which is quite a dog Leo by his side, life has settled into a comfortable routine.  Sure he could be doing more with his magic and even more with his career but at the end of the day Mason is just too damn lazy to put in the effort.  To play jazz, one has to be able to improvise and instead of learning the real fundamentals of magic and honing his skills, Mason simply improvises - that is until he meets someone runs afoul of a fellow practitioner who has decided to gain power at all costs.

Dog Days is a pretty steady novel but for an introduction to a series, it was really lacking in giving us a good feel for the world. We learn that each practitioner is born with varying degrees of magic and some of them are lucky enough to get a familiar (read ifrit) as a companion. We know that they have a series of governing bodies and that they use a check and balance system to ensure that they don't end up with a practitioner that is overly strong.  That's essentially it for the world building.  It's beyond basic.

Even the plot line is very basic.  There are no real twists and turns to the story and I feel as though that really made the antagonists decision to go after the less than earnest Mason underwhelming at best.  I just didn't buy his motivation.  In the end, it all came down to Christoph wanting Mason's ifrit and that he simply didn't like Mason.  We are told almost in passing that Leo is special but it is never really explained how or why.  In fact, though the ifrit are everywhere in this story we don't know anything about them beyond the fact that each has some kind of special power and is bonded to a particular practitioner.  Yep, that's a pretty massive plot hole. 

Levitt made a real effort to be inclusive with Dog Days; however, all the marginalized characters read like cardboard cut outs.  The two women characters are interchangeable love interests and victims. Naturally, being women, their special powers involve healing and you guessed it empathy.  I wonder if their power comes oozing out of their ovaries? There was never any doubt that one of them was going to die but Levitt double downed and dumped the other into the plot box for later in a manner which made absolutely no sense.  If someone had tried to kill you on several occasions, murdered someone you cared about before your very eyes, as well as attempted to murder a beloved pet and you respond by taking their life in self defense that doesn't make you a killer.  The idea that Mason is now suddenly a killer and an unfit match for a healer is ridiculous.

iZombie, Season 1, Episode 9: Patriot Brains

After last week’s revelations, Liv scurries out of the building avoiding being seen by Blaine. She angsts about Lowell’s source of brains – and has another flashback as she sees Blaine’s assistant, Julien and a definite vision of Blaine murdering people for brains. She sees many brain bags in the back of his car.

Ravi is a little worried after being bitten by the zombie rat – but he’s also a scientist and is carefully monitoring himself in case there’s any changes. Liv rushes in and spills everything in quick splurge of information. They realise there has been some kind of shenanigans over finding the bodies of the missing kids – they realise they have a police cover up. It also means that Major is right (and Liv feels guilty for making him back off) and she thinks Lowell must know where the brains are coming from.

Ravi reports Major is increasingly becoming isolated and staying to his room – and we drop in on him to see him watching videos about guns now he has his new toy. Ravi desperately tries to distract the still obsessed Major with computer games.

Liv goes to confront Lowell. Who insists Blaine told him the brains came from a funeral home. Liv isn’t buying that, Lowell is a zombie who has visions how could he not realise they were all young and how could he not know all his meals were murder victims? But Lowell says that most of his brains AREN’T young or violently killed and, because he isn’t investigating murders, he doesn’t actually come across vision triggers that often (and doesn’t try to seek them out as Liv does). He also adds that he was desperate and starving and he had no choice but to turn to Blaine (who turned him). Lowell takes the worst possible moment to ask why Liv doesn’t want to talk about “us” but she stomps all over that – she cares about the murdered homeless kids and wants Blaine’s number.

Lowell says he’s in love with her and she says, as she gets a message that they have a body, that “that’s going to be a problem.”

Time for a case – some guys playing paintball have a shock when some of the team are actually dead. This is when Liv and Ravi get called in (Liv sad because Lowell didn’t give up Blaine’s number and address). Clive joins them and introduces the victim, Everett Adams, former sniper, paint ball instructor shot from a distance and not with a paint ball. He was shot by someone lurking in a tree. He also worked as part of the Big Brother’s scheme

The Little Brother, Harris, tells them that Everett has an ex-wife who isn’t a fan. Liv heads back to the office to eat Everett’s brain but even she admits she’s doing it as much to cleanse her mind of visions of Jerome as to help solve the case.

Of course, new brain means new personality – that of a soldier. Which isn’t exactly relaxing when interviewing Everett’s ex-wife Penny and her new husband, Sean mentioning how the custody battle meant Sean had to turn down a very lucrative new job. Penny also says Everett had PTSD but resisted treatment – and only left the service and made Anna, their daughter, a priority when he saw she was getting a step-father. Sean has an alibi, Penny’s alibi is the daughter, Anna.

They interview Anna but she doesn’t want to talk – and we have a vision of Everett attacking Sean and Penny telling him to get out while brandishing a knife. Liv passes on the vision to Clive but they’re both surprised Penny didn’t report Everett’s attack to the police since it would have helped the custody battle.

Liv also inherits Everett’s PTSD which means midnight exercise and taking down everyone at paintball (and finding a shell casing in a place it shouldn’t have been). To Ravi! Who points out she cheated for her paintball trophy ion between asking Liv how she knew she was a zombie – and learns liv craved brains from the very moment of rising. Ravi clearly doesn’t have this.

Ravi also asks Liv what she would have done if she couldn’t become a pathologist – speaking in defence of Lowell and his ignorance and desperation. Liv doesn’t accept “Lowell didn’t know” as an excuse because she sees it clearly as “Lowell didn’t want to know.” Ravi also points out what a luxury it is for Liv not to know whether she would have done the same.

Mirrorheart (Require: Cookie Series #2) by Grace McDermott

New recruit Stef died, on a mission she was grossly unqualified to be on all because Agent Ryan couldn’t say no to the surrogate daughter who just wanted to impress him. And now she’s dead

Unless he breaks one of the fundamental Agency Rules and makes a wish to bring her back. There’s only really one choice - and a desperate need to keep it secret

Which isn’t easy when his Agency gets audited - not for bringing Stef back but because Recruit Curt is outraged by how Stef was put at risk and how little Ryan seems to care...

The shifting point of view of this book is interesting - switching away from Spyder’s viewpoint  allows us a whole new angle to the world beyond her own.

In particular we see a lot more of Agent Ryan, his flaws and his limitations, those latter two being especially important. It’s easy to see Ryan as this perfect, calm, benevolent force because that is the image he presents to the world and he has done some truly beautiful, kind things.

But when we see him through the eyes of some of the people he has wronged or treated poorly we see a whole new angle. Then we get to see him through his own eyes and we see someone so very unsure, whose bad deeds come more from a deep lack of social graces and understanding and a constant sense of his own inadequacy backed with an almost fierce self-loathing

This really does make the short story Legacy far more relevant. By seeing Ryan’s views of his former self, Rhys, and how that affects him - how he holds his previous incarnation in contempt, even revulsion. How he fights not to follow in his former footsteps while at the same time constantly being judged by his predecessors standards. It’s an excellent shadow hanging over him. His internal conflict and the conflict between how everyone sees him and who he really is really stands out excellently

And is part of the theme of the whole book. We have Curt, the ex-Solstice recruit, so often hated by his fellow agents for his past and so torn over it. Frustrated and angry that he isn’t given the opportunities he should have, isn’t given a true place in the agency or treated as a member of the team by his fellow recruits. Yet at the same time he hates what he has done before and loathes the idea of returning to what he once was - his own self-loathing is as powerful as his disdain for his fellows. On top of that he has his own PTSD to deal with - the abuse he suffered at the hands of agents shadowing him and his actions.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 6: Ill Met by Moonlight

After receiving Countess Marburg’s gift, Mary and Tituba hurriedly use magic to save George’s life. But as they resurrect him, he drowns again and Tituba despairs at Marburg’s power. Tearfully, Mary tries more desperate and bloody spells to try and save George before Tituba drags her away, wailing and crying (is she actually grieving for George beyond just the power and influence he represents?).

They cannot save him – he is lost, “all is lost”.

In the streets, John follows Anne, using his invisibility woo-woo, but it is clearly costing him more and more, and covering his skin in worrisome black lines.

On her ship Marburg chides her son Sebastien for letting Mary past him – they’re both very impressed by her power. Marburg is also not willing to consider Mary defeated yet.

In the tavern, Hawthorne celebrates his plan to leave for the Carolinas and tells grossly crude, sexist and sexual jokes about Anne, the woman he intends to force to marry him. Cotton takes exception and he talks about how Hawthorne is supposed to love Anne. Like Anne, Hawthorne finds Cotton’s insistence that love has anything to do with marriage quite ridiculous – and he refers to Anne as property before going on for more crude misogyny. Bar fight time.

All the while Anne wonders if her love spell worked, writing down her actions in her book. Anne seems quite happy to see Cotton brawling with Hawthorne in the street even as Tituba and Mary watch and see what has happened (and confirm it’s the spell that motivated Cotton). Mary hopes Anne’s spell causes Cotton to kill Hawthorne – even as one of Hawthorne’s friends gives Hawthorne a knife. It comes close as Cotton wins and holds the knife – but Anne whispers “you’re no killer” and either by magic or truth, Cotton doesn’t end so many of Mary’s problems. This isn’t Mary’s night

Infuriated, Mary has them both thrown in gaol for brawling in the street in such a disgraceful fashion.

John staggers back to where he left Petrus’s corpse (why? Because the script said so) which speaks to him. Yes he’s rotting but still talking. Corpsy wonders why John can’t bring himself to kill Mary – poking at his feelings. It’s also possible John is hallucinating Petrus.

The Marburgs arrive in Salem looking very elegant and rich next to the scabby peasantry – Marburg has come with many supplies to help the poor beleaguered people of Salem. Mary and Margburg snark a little, they’re very good at it. Marburg even rubs her face in the death of George.

They go on a little tour of the town and Marburg is quite bemused and worried that Mary isn’t revelling in the fact she’s about to kill all these people in the Grand Rite. Mary you have to work on your cackle and villainous monologue, this just won’t do. Mary dreams of a Utopia, a world where everything is perfect, Marburg who I can’t help but adore, points out that “utopia” actually means “no place” and there’s a reason for that. Marburg instead pictures a glorious future of massacres, world domination and crushed empires.